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COPYRIGHT
'949
The copyright law wa» oonsidered up to now m forbidding pinlca to ttoil sn luthor's property before a maximum of fifty-»ix yeai« tflcr its rc^tntion. After Ibis lime every pirate could uae it fiedy, moUng great piolita without letting the real owner 'participate' in the profitr of hit property,
The moral which had created a'law of this kind seemed so low and unin* tciligibte that one always wondered in whose interest it was created, and why an lutiwr should be deprived of his property cmly for the advantage of shamelesa pirates, while every other property could be inherited by the most dtatant lelfttivcs for centurica. Nobody can prove that the lo per ccikt which the author —the creator, the real o>wncr of this property — would receive after the fifty -six years would have caused any damage to the public. Because* if a work is still sellable after fifty-six yeara^ die editions which a publisher prints can be so large that the cost of products decreases to 25 per cent ol the cost of the amsller editions. Accordioglyi the prices wittt the expiration of the 'proteclioa period* go down 60 per cent aiul nwre (as» for instance* the cases of Wagner and Brahms indicste). Accordingly, even at 60 per cent plus 10 per cent for the suthor, the public would buy the work for much less than durli^ the ^proteotiou period*.
All this seems to be perfectly sensdeas and one can only think that it is maliciousness opunst the heirs of an author — while other hcira remaia unmolcatcdl
Now I have discovered the true solution to thla problem:
At the time when thn kw was msde there did not yet exisi the so-called 'small rights'; there was not yet the radio, the movies, recordings, there was no payment for performanoe. At this time most authors sold their vrorks to s publisher entirely, with all rights included. TWt participation of the suthors in royalties of sates, of rcntab, of pcifomunoes, rccordingSj radio, and movie transcriptions was not foreseen by the suthor nor by the publisher. I conclude that the law was not made to deprive the suthor of his property.
It was msde in analogy to the pstent taws, admitting exduaive rights only
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